Tuesday
by Armadilloi
Summary: Read by 2/28. It will be deleted.


_OK, I found this on Jim's harddrive and I decided it was finished so here it is. It was written in Feb 09 and just sitting there so I figured....why not? He wrote it but I TYPED IT...hooray for me._

_Nicole Fontenot/trypist_

**Tuesday**

Marriott Executive Suites  
Los Angeles, CA  
February 18

We met at the bar in the Marriott in downtown L.A. on a Tuesday. Business was slow. He came in and ordered a draft beer and his hand shook so badly he'd spilled some and the bartender, Toni, refilled his stein and cleaned up the spill.

There was something about him that drew my attention. Armani suit, Rolex watch, no ring and such a sad face. I took my drink from the end of the bar and nodded to Toni and slid onto the stool beside him.

"She throw you out?" What an opening line. I cursed myself. Stupid!

"No. She's…she's busy with someone else right now. God, I hate this business." He looked on the verge of tears. '…busy with someone else…' in our line of work meant she was doing some John and he was her…driver?…bodyguard?. I'd seen her working the mark, a real low-life bottom feeding scumbag.

"So, how long you been in love with her? I'm Carol, by the way."

"Ch…Charles. And I'm not in love with her. Not now, not ever. Just not possible." From the way he looked when he said those words I knew this guy was lying to me and to himself. He loved her but hated her job. And she'd never give up the work. Some of us are like that. We love what we do. Good money, clothes, nice places, mostly anyway.

He looked over at me and brown eyes connected with blue and I knew I was going to freebie this guy. I needed to do something nice and he looked like he'd be nice to do. And obviously he wasn't a scumbag. He was someone's brother, son, but not lover.

"Get a room. I'll meet you at the elevators in 10 minutes." I nodded to Toni and left to go to the ladies' and fix my makeup and hair and to check with my service. Business was business after all.

* * *

Every Tuesday for the next 8 months we'd meet at the Marriott but then a cheaper hotel. We finally settled in at the Burbank Best Western. Tuesdays from 8 until whenever. I charged him $100 and each time as he left he put an envelope on the dresser or desk.

I began to wonder about Charles when I saw the bruises on his ribs. I'd seen enough men beaten in my day to know when someone had been worked over by pros and he'd definitely been handled. I really got suspicious when he couldn't take a shower because of a bandage on his shoulder. I have a rule: no shower, no Carol. He looked almost relieved and said he just wanted to hold on to someone who wasn't doing it 'for the damned cover'. That was probably in the 3rd month of our 'relationship'. After that it was just strip, cuddle and talk. Sometimes he didn't even talk. Once he cried. When the bandage was gone the next week I saw what it had covered - a gunshot wound.

By the end of the 6th month I'd noticed a pattern and began to put names together from our conversations. People who do what I do are good listeners but we're also good at protecting ourselves from our clients. I got to know that he had a sister named Ellie, a girlfriend who didn't love him. Her name was Sarah but he wasn't really sure and it really didn't matter. She was the one he'd been with the first night in L.A. And then there was Big John and Casey and Her Wickedness. That's what he called the woman who ran things, Her Wickedness.

All this time I thought he was a just a guy who worked in the business and had a thing for one of the girls and needed someone to talk to because he sure couldn't talk to her.

Boy, was I wrong.

* * *

I lived with one other girl in a studio apartment in West Hollywood. She had a regular job and worked the phones but pulled the occasional trick if we were swamped. She was always forgetting her keys or something so when I heard knocking and glanced at the clock I figured it was Tricia-No-Keys.

Boy, was I wrong.

**October 21**

West Hollywood, CA

I opened the door and there stood a blonde of about 30 and a large man of 40. Both looked very serious and very scary, especially the blonde. Then the guy looked, I don't know, amused, at the whole thing.

She asked if I was 'Carol' and right away I got a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach. I only told one guy my real first name, Charles, and to this day I don't know why.

I nodded and gestured for them to come in but the big guy just said, 'No way, Walker, you're on your own. I helped you find her. Now she's your problem." She started to bitch him out but stopped. "Damn it, Casey, you promised…"

"No. I promised to help you find Tuesday and here she is. I'll see you back at the Cas..at work." He grinned at me and then walked away toward the stairs and the parking lot. He looked a hell of a lot less scary when he smiled.

She sat down at the kitchen table and I brought her a cup of coffee while she checked me out. I knew she was doing the comparison that all women do when they meet 'the other woman'.

"So, how long have you known Chuck?" I guess I looked stumped because she showed me a 4X6 glossy of Charles. "This man. How long have you known him?"

"Eight months. Who are you and what do you want? Has something happened to Charles? Are you cops?"

"What is your relationship to this man?"

"Let me see your badge. Your ID. I know my rights. Show me some ID or get the hell out." I stood tall, all 5 feet 5 inches of me. And she still hadn't answered my question.

"I don't have a badge. We're not cops. We're…bodyguards and Charles is our client. Now, what is your relationship to this man?" She was getting very excited and a little angry like no one had ever told her 'no' before.

I told her about Tuesdays, about how we'd met in the bar at the Marriott in L.A. 8 months prior and started seeing each other regularly since then.

"Are you sleeping with him?" She looked like I'd told her there was no Santa Claus and for just a moment we connected and I saw all her secrets and fears regarding this 'Chuck' she'd asked about.

"Oh my God, you're Sarah, aren't you? And that was Casey or maybe Big John, I don't know which. And cut the crap. You're just an escort like me. What is Charles to you, besides a driver or security? The first night I met him he'd brought you to the Marriott for a 'date', right? Do you know how that affected him? And yeah, we were sleeping together for the first, I don't know, three months? But not since. We just cuddle and he holds me because he needs someone who isn't doing it for the damned cover. That's what he calls it, 'the damned cover'."

"That's all? He doesn't talk about his work? What he does?" I'd nailed her with my comments and she was trying to get her mojo back and on track.

"And I'm a bodyguard, not a whore."

"Then why were you upstairs entertaining a scumbag leaving Charles in the bar the first night I met him? I saw you hustle the mark. I figured you were competition. You just call it something else, just like I do. Escort sounds so much nicer than whore or prostitute, don't you think?"

Now she was getting aggravated and it showed in her tone and pattern of speech.

"Does – he – talk – about – his – work?" She was getting pissed.

"No. I know what he does. It 's not something he's proud of, I can tell you that. Driving hookers around to meet their Johns is not something to put on a résumé."

"He doesn't drive hookers around, Carol. He's a…he's a decent man doing a crappy job for people who don't give a shit and it's not driving around some call girls."

"Oh, please. He's told me about Her Wickedness, his boss. Says she's a 'scary bitch' and he knows someday she's going to have him whacked for what he knows about her business."

I was staring at her and it made her nervous. "Why do you keep looking at me like that?"

"I just don't know what he sees in you, why he is so damned in love with you and why you think something's wrong with him and can't love him back."

"There's nothing wrong with him, nothing at all. He's kind and sweet and generous and... Our relationship is complicated."

"Well it's sure changed him from when I first met him. Now he carries a gun and he talks less and less about you and more and more about …"

"Talks more about what? His work? People he meets? What?"

"Dying."

The shock on this Sarah's face was genuine and the sudden tearing of her eyes said more than anything else. So I drove the knife in a little further, twisting it.

"He talks about dying and how little it would matter to the one who matters most to him. I'm afraid I'll see him in the obits."

* * *

Castle  
October 20

The Monday mission had been hairy. He hadn't been paying attention to the shadowy areas between the stacks of wooden crates he'd walked past and he'd almost gotten cut up badly when one of the Fulcrum agents had come at him with a knife. The training he'd been getting periodically kicked in and he managed to disarm and then subdue his assailant with only a few cuts, only a couple required stitches.

At the debriefing Casey had been both complimentary and critical of his performance. "Bartowski, nice take down on the Fulcrum stay-behind but you got yourself cut up and shouldn't have if you'd been on your game and paying attention. Get your head out of your ass when you're on an op. You can't be thinking about your girlfriend, you have to have your head in the game."

"I wasn't thinking about Walker, Casey. Jesus, how many times do you think I have to be told 'it's just a cover' before it sinks in?" He got up and slammed the briefing book onto the table and left the Castle.

"Smooth, John. Rub his nose in it. Rub _my_ nose in it."

"Walker, I wasn't talking about you. I was talking about Tuesday."

"What? Who? Tuesday?"

"Tuesday's 'date night' for him. He's been hooking up with the same broad every Tuesday for the past 7 or 8 months. Far as I can see it's none of our business. The boy needs something in his life and he sure isn't getting it from his 'cover girlfriend'."

"Seven or eight months? Since…" She was thinking back over the past months since things had gotten stiff and strained between them. They still had to maintain the cover but it was the whole thing with Cole that had hardened 'Chuck and Sarah' into Asset & Agent. He maintained the strictest level of professionalism between them and it made for a strained cover. And a much better working relationship. And a miserable handler.

"Casey, why hasn't this been reported? Who is this woman? Does she pose a threat to the intersect?" Strictly professional.

He got up and went over to a file cabinet he kept his gun cleaning kit and materials in. He took out a thick manila folder and threw it across the table to her. "You think I'd let the kid run around with someone who hadn't been fully vetted? She an escort, a hooker, a call girl, a whore…and she's good for him, Sarah. She's clean and she's no security risk. No arrests, no bad time, she's just a girl from the Midwest who came to Hollywood and didn't make it."

Sarah was still having trouble wrapping her head around Chuck and the Hooker. "Casey, he's paying for sex? Surely he doesn't have to do that. There are a lot of women he could date…" She stopped herself. He wasn't allowed to date. It was 'frowned on' after the thing with Lou blew up in his face. She didn't even want to think about the Jill thing.

She opened the file. There were several photographs of her coming out of the motel, getting in her car, doing grocery shopping, going into hotel bars and going into her apartment. There was also a professional photo from her agent. Blonde, blue eyed, nice body, but there the resemblance stopped. She was a little saddened that he wasn't trying to find 'her' out there.

"I want to talk to her. Tomorrow morning. This has got to stop. It's a security violation, Casey. You should have reported it. I'm your partner, I should have been told."

"Why? Why does it have to stop? She's vetted so the 'security violation' is moot. Why take away something that's good in his life? Even Beckman gave it a pass. Who are you to overrule the general?"

"I'm his damned girlfriend, Casey. He's cheating on me!" She got mad when he started laughing at her.

"Walker, you're a piece of work. You're his cover girlfriend. He's not cheating on you. He _can't _cheat on you. It's not real! If it were real, you'd be cheating on him every time you screw Cole or Larkin. Can you say 'double standard', Agent Walker?"

"Larkin's history and Cole was a mistake, that's all. Heat of the moment sorta stuff."

"And all the marks in between?" Casey could be cruel when he wanted to be, and given her comments and attitude, he wanted to be.

"It's the job, Casey. Jesus, you're as bad as Chuck. I do it because it's my job."

"Well, it's her job. Although she certainly isn't making any money. The motel costs more than she makes on it. And she's with him all night. And I checked with her…service…all night is $1,000."

"I want to talk to her tomorrow morning, John. Take me to her place, please."

**October 21  
**West Hollywood, CA

"Carol, it would matter a great deal to me. It would literally be the end of me. I don't think I could survive if he weren't in my life. What he does, what we do, it's important and there are rules that affect us, our relationship. If we ever had a relationship and got caught, I'd be gone and he'd be alone or worse, in a hole in the ground either very deep or very shallow."

"So quit. Run away. Start over someplace else. Go someplace where they won't find you. The mob has its fingers everywhere but you can beat them."

"If only we could. It's not the mob. It's…"

"You do love him, don't you? Really."

"Oh, yes. Really."

"OK."

"OK?"

"Yep. OK."

**October 21  
**Burbank Best Western Hotel Burbank, CA  
8pm

Chuck walked into the lobby and waved at the clerk behind the desk. They'd gone to high school together and Ronnie had barely gotten through so this job was last chance. He gave him the room key and told him he'd see him next week and they both laughed.

He swiped the key and walked into the room. It was awash in candlelight. Every flat surface had a candle on it and the bed was turned down and he heard the shower turn off and the light in the bath went out. Although this was something new, he figured it was just Carol's way of breaking the monotony. After eight months of listening to him whine and cry and moan maybe she figured she'd try something to 'lighten' the atmosphere.

He removed his suit coat and hung it up and then toed off his shoes. He put the envelope on the desk. He hated business shoes but Her Wickedness had decreed that as long as he worked for the NSA he would follow the dress code. He unstrapped the shoulder holster and then checked that the pistol was on safe and put it under the pillow on 'his' side of the bed. The white shirt and tie followed, as did the suit pants that he carefully hung up to maintain the seam. Not paying attention to anything but his actions he walked in and took a quick shower.

He towel dried himself and his hair and then walked out and slipped beneath the covers. Her back was turned to him so he moved over and took her in his arms, spooning against her and started talking softly, first thanking her for being there and then for all the candles.

She reached down and took his hand from her stomach and put it on her breast and he felt the nipple harden against the palm of his hand. Sighing, he tried to remove his hand but she held it there firmly and finally whispered, "I'd forgotten what it felt like. I'd forgotten how wonderful it felt to be held and touched by someone who loved me. Thank you for reminding me. And Chuck, thank you for loving me."

Chuck tried to pull away but she stopped him. "No, please, don't. I need this. I need you. Here in this room we're just Chuck and Sarah, a guy and a girl. No CIA, no intersect, just you and me…every Tuesday. I love you, Chuck Bartowski, every day of the week. But Tuesday, Tuesday I get to show you."


End file.
